144
NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. i. FEB. 19, 1910.
As to the alleged " boarding-up till her Dr. Wilson died at Alfred House, 1784 (see
death," there is the positive assertion made Gentleman's Magazine, liv. 317). By his
by A. Y. Z. (see above) that the statue was will, dated' 5 May, 1779, he revoked all
taken down in the lifetime of Dr. Wilson, ' gifts, &c., to " Catharine Graham, formerly
who died 15 April, 1784, seven years before ! Macauly," but he left 500Z. and accruing
the death of Mrs. Macaulay. Further, one ! interest to Catharine Sophia, daughter of
would gather from what A. Y. Z. says that Dr. Macaulay.
the statue was " taken down " in 1778 or I have given the mistaken spellings 1779, since he suggests that the reason for " Macauley " and " Macauly " where they its removal was either anger at the marriage, or the immediate intention of the Vestry to " cite him to the Commons."
After her second marriage Mrs. Macaulay called herself Macaulay Graham (see vols. vi., vii., viii. of her ' History '). On the beauti- ful tablet in her memory in the church at Binfield she is called " Catharina Macavlay Graham." It has a medallion, containing her head in profile, surrounded by a wreath. At the top of the tablet is an owl in relief.
Mrs. Macaulay is said in the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' to have gone, after her union with Graham, first to Leicester- shire and then to Binfield, where she livec after her return from America, arid where
occur in my quotations. The Christian
name is on the title-pages of her
' History l spelt variously " Catharine " and
" Catherine." ROBERT PIERPOINT.
St. Austin's, Warrington.
she died. Vol. vi. of her ' History ' has a
preface dated " Jan. 1781, Laurence-street
Chelsea, Middlesex.' 1
It appears from a quotation from her
- History of England ' given in The Gentle
man's Magazine, vol. xlviii., 1778, p. 529, that her
J * very worthy grandfather, Mr. Jacob Sawbridge, was among those sufferers who were deemed public delinquents, whose estates were confiscated, whose persons were imprisoned, and who suffered the disgrace of disablement from bearing office, .and expulsion from the house."
'This was because he was a South Sea director
- (see European Magazine, November, 1783,
vol. iv. p. 330). Mrs. Macaulay says that her grandfather was perfectly free from any intention or inclination to defraud the public, &c.
The following words have been recently inscribed on the base of the statue in the Warrington Town Hall, with the consent of the Mayor, at my request :
Catharine Macaulay
Historian
1731-1791
Presented to the Corporation | by Colonel the' Bight Honourable I John Wilson Patten M.P 1 1872.
According to The European Magazine (ibid.). Dr. Wilson
" purchased, and presented her [Mrs. Macaulay] with a mansion, which he called by the name of Alfred House, a library, servants, and every article of luxury and splendour."
' THE PARISH GUTTLERS.'
THE Select Vestries of the London parishes were until their final extinction a favourite object of derision for the local satiric wits, but the parish historians, dependant for subscriptions upon the vicar and his co- administrators of the Poor Law, with few exceptions ignored these squibs.
So, although in Islington, for example, there were a score or more different lampoons, from ' The Chronicles of Hillhausen '" to mere slip songs, Lewis, the most thorough of its local recorders, has nothing to say either of these skits or the abuses which justified their publication. This class of literature had its commencement early in the eigh- teenth century, and " The Parish Gutt'lers ; or, The Humours of a Select Vestry. London, Printed in the year MDCCXxn., n is evidently the first of its kind. The aim of this squib is sufficiently indicated by the four-line stanza printed on the title-page :
When Parish Taxes shall be well apply'd, And Vestries lay their costly feasts aside, Then shall Church Ward'ns deal justly by the
Poor, And be accounted Gutt'ling knaves no more.
Among the principal characters portrayed is a goldsmith, who, complaining of unjust local taxation, breaks out with a diatribe in which occurs :
Who conjur'd up that Parish Sect,
A modern Vestry, call'd Select,
An old Rebellious Name of late
Reviv'd, that stinks of Forty-Eight.
Knicky-Knocky, an undertaker, and other tradesmen, members of the vestry, are described with the coarseness and lame rimes typical of Ned Ward. Whoever was Jie author, matters little, but he produced
squib that could be aimed at many
different Select Vestries,
definite identifications.
as it avoided
